Debate rages over pioneering genetic treatment
Midwives magazine: Issue 2 :: 2012
Researchers have been awarded £6m in funding to develop a groundbreaking treatment, in a bid to prevent genetic conditions.
It is hoped it could stop heart, muscle or brain conditions being passed on to future generations.
But the method is causing controversy as it involves transferring the parents' DNA into a donor egg.
This means the child would inherit a very small fraction of genetic coding from the egg donor.
While the percentage of donor DNA would only be 0.2%, this tiny amount means the procedure is against current scientific regulations, which the health minister has the power to change.
The research is aimed at tackling diseases passed down through families via mutated mitochondria –the structures that supply power to cells.
Although 99.8% of DNA is inherited evenly from our father and mother and stored in the nucleus of cells, a tiny fraction resides in the mitochondria and is passed down only by the mother.
Faults in the mitochondria affect about one in 200 children in the UK each year, causing diseases such as muscular dystrophy or ataxia.
Prof Doug Turnbull, who is leading the research, said: ‘The important thing is that this has the possibility of stopping the disease completely.
‘If this technique proves to be as safe as IVF and as effective as the preliminary studies, I think we could totally prevent the transmission of these diseases.’
A spokesperson from the group Comment on Reproductive Ethics branded the procedure ‘very, very far removed from nature’.
While the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children described the research as ‘macabre and unethical’.
But Sir Mark Walport, head of the Wellcome Trust, said the genetic impact would be as minimal as changing the batteries in a camera.
And minister for universities and science, David Willetts, praised the ‘important and potentially life-saving discovery’.
The Department of Health has now ordered a public consultation on the issue, which will be followed by a Commons debate.
If both the scientific and political criteria are satisfied then, following the consultation, the therapy could be trialled in humans within two to three years.
